


The Fading Light

by CannedBread



Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Banuk - Freeform, Banuk Shaman, Character Death, Death, Short & Sweet, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-20
Updated: 2019-02-20
Packaged: 2019-11-01 12:15:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17867084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CannedBread/pseuds/CannedBread





	The Fading Light

There is no one left to hear my song. Even the fire has faded and gone. The last of the embers turned cold as the ice and I am alone again. So I sing my song to the mountain and pray it hears my words. I sing my song to the glaciers and pray they keep my words after I am no longer here to sing them for myself. Perhaps one day, the melt will come to this place and my song will fly free for all to hear. But until then, I will be content to know it is simply kept safe.

  
I came to the mountain searching, as many have before and many will after me. I came hoping there would be answers, but I have found only more questions and silence. The Blue Light fades and I fear, one day soon, it may be lost to us all. The machines, so quick to anger, and the conclave has no solutions.

We have failed.

 _I_ _have failed._

What will become of us here when the corruption snuffs of the last of the Blue Light? The hunters see the challenge and rise to it now, but how long will it be before it overwhelms even the mightiest of us? Each day we lose more to the South and to the machines. Each season brings with it new and more terrible monsters to prowl the snow. The rage grows and I can feel it in my bones.

_We are Banuk. We survive and we prevail._

I’ve heard the words so many times, but my fears persist. Perhaps they were right. Perhaps my doubts are where the problems lie. If we were strong, if we believed, if we resisted, we could bring the Blue Light back to our lands. But did the doubt come first? No one can agree anymore. The corruption infects us too. Eats away at us from within. Sewing distrust and resentment through Ban-Ur and the Weraks throughout our lands.

Is this who we have become?

I am tired. Too tired to fight any longer. I think, perhaps, they would be ashamed of me if they heard me say such things. But I am too tired to argue with them any longer as well. Banuk fight until the bitter end, isn’t that right? Maybe I am not Banuk then. Maybe I am Amaruq of no tribe. Shaman of nothing.

So be it.

Maybe that is what it will take. Someone from beyond Banuk lands to find the answers I have been seeking. To calm the machines and bring peace back to us once more. To return the Blue Light to the world in all its fullness. I have lost hope that we can do any such thing ourselves. I only hope we are not too far beyond accepting help.

Too stubborn and distrustful by half, that is what we have become. The Carja saw to that.

But I leave that to them now. My song is ending and sleep awaits me. The snow calls me home like a warm bed and I want for nothing more than to lay down my head and close my eyes. The howling of the wind has gone and the world is quiet again, urging me to rest. Even just for a moment.

I can hear the sounds of the machine song through the trees. Let their song carry me home. Let their light guide my way. I am not alone so long as I have them.

I am Amaruq of the machines, of the mountain, of the Blue Light. Come to rest in the ice and snow, beneath the stars and, like warm breath on the frozen wind, I will drift away home.

Home…


End file.
